What's the difference between a sugar daddy and a john?

Winston Churchill gets a lot of posthumous credit for witticisms he never uttered, including the exchange below. We’re disappointed to learn it wasn’t Mr. Churchill who said this – apparently he was quite gallant in conversation with women – but we’re going to quote it anyway because the message doesn’t change:

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill. Well, I suppose…we would have to discuss terms, of course.Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds? Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

We thought of this exchange recently when we read an article on HuffPo about female college students who are seeking to pay off credit card debt and hefty student loans via “sugar daddy” relationships. These women call themselves “sugar babies” when they advertise their availability (not their services, of course) online. But as far as we can tell, a sugar baby is just a prostitute – or sex worker – who eats dinner with her client first.

Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with getting paid for sex to pay off your college loans. It’s not as if most college women are having respectful, satisfying, orgasmic sex anyway. (More like sloppy blowjobs where the dude holds her ears like a steering wheel.) And, hey, most college kids could use a decent dinner out. But it seems to us that trying to pass off your sugar daddy as anything other than a john is some serious self-delusion. And if you’re that deluded about what it is you’re doing, who knows what kind of regrets you’ll experience later on when the money’s all gone and you finally figure out that a spade is a spade is a spade.